Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Did Lieberman Mislead Voters?

Let's see. This is from an article in the Stamford Advocate, but there's lots more in many other places:

Lieberman and U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., co-authored a letter to President Bush "strongly encouraging" him to send more troops "to improve the security situation on the ground."

However:

In a July 6 debate with Lamont, Lieberman said he was "confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops."[...]After losing the Democratic primary to Lamont and forming his own party running as an independent Democrat, Lieberman outlined a 10-point plan for Iraq in which he called for increasing the number of U.S. troops embedded in Iraqi units two- or three-fold. But he said this should be done by redeploying existing troops "not adding new troops to the region." (Lockhart)

Lieberman's Iraq policy was never all that clear during the campaign, so this, which appears to be more of a modification of his earlier pro-war stance and not an about face, probably won't either surprise or alarm most voters.

Still, Lieberman hasn't been entirely consistent as he claims, and he certainly never suggested a troop "surge" like what he is proposing now. The campaign may have gone differently if he had. Lieberman effectively neutralized his nebulous stand on Iraq as an issue, instead focusing on partisanship, but if he had expressed support for the "surge," which is turning out to be an unpopular position, he probably would have had a tougher time of it.

Lieberman needs to explain why and how his thinking on Iraq has shifted. To claim that this has always been his position, and that he has always been consistent on Iraq, is to rewrite history.

3 comments:

I was a delegate to the 2006 convention of Connecticut's Democratic party and cast my ballot for the convention endorsed Joe. When the liberal left came out of the woodwork endorsing Lamont at the primary, I continued my vocal, loyal support for Joe while the democratic establishment flipped to Lamont (nod nod, wink wink). I had thought that Joe learned something from primary and would return to Washington - message received. Unfortunately, I've now learned that Joe is a liar. Joe IS about Joe. Joe has lost his integrity and moral compass. For these acts I'm sorry, and I apologize.